Actor Chris Pratt in a scene from a Michelob Ultra commercial. Pratt, the star of the “Jurassic World” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” film franchises, will make his advertising debut Super Bowl Sunday in a pair of commercials for the light beer. Anheuser-Busch via AP

Dilly! Dilly!

With the Super Bowl only days away audiences who love the game for its commercials may soon learn the fate of the Bud Light team.

At last look they were underdogs on a battlefield.

“That is the only reason I watch the Super Bowl,” said Janell Townsend, who grew up in Fraser watching the Super Bowl and its commercials and is now teaching the next generation of ad makers as an associate professor of marketing and international business at Oakland University. “They’re really interesting to watch and I’m excited to see the angles that companies are taking this year and where they’re going with their products.”

Pepsi for instance, will be recreating a version of its 1992 ad with Cindy Crawford, only this year she’ll be joined by her 18-year-old son. Then there’s the Doritos and Mountain Dew ad staring Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman featuring two brands facing off in a single 60-second commercial: new spicy Doritos and a new lemon lime version of Mountain Dew.

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It’s a tricky strategy using two brands in the same time spot. Does it work? Townsend will discuss it with her students the day after the Super Bowl.

“I’ve always used the Super Bowl commercials as an example of the relative importance that advertising has taken,” said Michael Bernacchi, who has been teaching marketing and advertising since the Super Bowl was known only as the national championship between the AFL and NFL. “It’s wonderful to be able to use this key moment to teach people in the classroom. Everyone is feverishly talking notes and getting connected,” or shouting Dilly Dilly!

The original ad set in an age of knights and chivalry features the people of the kingdom approach their king one-by-one bearing gifts. They’re all cases of Bud Light, which receive the applause and verbal “Dilly Dilly” response of the king and his countrymen. Then some guy thinking better of everyone gives the king a bottle of spiced honey mead wine, because that is what he’s really been into lately. Instead of praise the king banishes him to the “pit of misery” to which everyone applauds with another round of “Dilly Dilly!”

The ad writers thought it was funny and so have the fans who have been sharing it on social media since it aired. Now, with only days to go before the Super Bowl, fans are anxiously awaiting a sequel to one of these Bud Light commercials expected to air along with the championship game, between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles (Philly Philly!).

A single commercial during Super Bowl LII fetches $5 million per 30-second spot.

Is it worth it?

This is the question Bernacchi poses to his advertising and marketing students every year. The response is typically an empahtic “No!” he reports.

“They say, ‘How can it possibly be worth it,’” Bernacchi said. “Then I ask them, ‘Where else can you get a committed viewing audience like the Super Bowl?”

America’s television audience has become experts at eliminating commercials from their life. They record their favorite network shows so they can fast-forward through the commercials or watch streaming networks that offer commercial free shows such as Netflix. As a result, the viewing audience becomes fractured.

“But guess what?” Bernacchi said. “There’s one time of year when we want to watch commercials and that’s during the Super Bowl.”

That’s when 100 million Americans, about 8.3 million Canadians and millions more around the globe tune into one show, which in itself transcends into a phenomenon.

Will it be a great show this year?

There’s no playbook for Super Bowl commercials but traditionally they are designed to create awareness and have strong recall. In between that is a laundry list of elements that are important in today’s interactive landscape.

“The spot was fantastic,” she said. It features a small boy donning a Darth Vader costume who is trying to unsuccessfully channel his “dark side” powers to start household appliances and fitness equipment. All attempts fail until his dad pulls up in his VW Passat. The dad goes into the house with the vehicle’s remote start key fob and this time when the boy tries to start the car via his “dark side” powers, his dad secretly starts it with the remote.

“It was cute and engaging,” Fry said.

In the end, it generated 17 million YouTube views before the game and was the most shared Super Bowl spot of all time. That’s why companies shell out the big bucks, these ads can significantly boost the brand.

“One study shows movies that run ads during the Super Bowl do better than ones that don’t; another shows that companies’ stock prices get at least a short-term boost from a big-game appearance,” according to an excerpt from Sports Illustrated’s “Super Bowl Gold: 50 Years of The Big Game.”

Being the phenomenon they are ads during the big game are held to a higher standard of creativity.

Fans want to see funny, interesting, shocking commercials.

“They have to be something people want to share on social media or talk about the next day,” said Seungae “Suzy” Lee, who teaches advertising, IMC and advertising accounting planning and research at OU.

Her favorite example of creativity and humor is Turbo Tax’s “Humpty Fall Humpty Dumpty” from last year’s Super Bowl. Its message was totally unclear but the large broken egg being rushed to the ER? It cracked people up.

“Just because you don’t get the message doesn’t mean it’s bad. It was funny and interesting and it caused people to ask about the message later,” said Lee. By the way, Humpty Dumpty fell because he was doing his taxes instead of Turbo Tax doing them.

An offshoot of the commercials is the social media attention created by them.

“Last year Volkswagen didn’t buy any air time during the Super Bowl but they asked audiences to Tweet #Volkswagen every time they saw a competitor’s ad during the game,” Lee said. “The next year their sales were up.”

“These ads are so important to some consumers they’ll miss part of the game (during a bathroom break) rather than miss a commercial,” Bernacchi said.